Here's To A Great 2008!

Happy New Year!

Could this be the year for a BIG change for the Ranch?

Here is an article from the RSF Review worth reading:




By Ian S. PortAssistant Editor


A long-stewing question that has divided the Rancho Santa Fe community in the past will return to center stage in 2008, when a group of residents will ask local voters to sign petitions on an issue that could change the area forever: Should Rancho Santa Fe incorporate into a town?
A group of local activists, including Dick Chandler and Marion Dodson, have been preparing a campaign to convince voters that the answer to that question is yes. Their group, which calls itself Citizens to Protect the Ranch, argues that incorporation would provide more local control over development issues, better law enforcement and more responsive local government — while potentially saving Covenant residents money on their homeowners association dues.
“Things are not as good as they could be and should be,” said Dick Chandler, a major proponent of the incorporation effort. “The quality of life is not what it was 25 years ago. The traffic problem was not what it is today, the streets were in better condition, there wasn’t the urban encroachment that’s filled in around us. People sooner or later are going to decide that they want to control their own destiny.”
Chandler and CPR have been working with the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) on preliminary studies to determine the boundaries of the town, which would include all of the Covenant, as well as communities between it and Encinitas. The Rancho Del Rio and Hacienda Santa Fe developments would be included along with several other areas.
But all the major gated communities — Fairbanks Ranch, The Bridges, Cielo and the Crosby — would lie outside of the boundaries of the proposed town. The southeastern edge would run along the San Dieguito river, and the northern edge would fall along Escondido creek west of the Bridges development. The town would be bordered on the west by Solana Beach and Encinitas, and on the south by San Diego.
To put incorporation on a ballot and get LAFCO to formally approve any boundaries, CPR will have to get signatures from 25 percent of the voters in the proposed town or 25 percent of the landowners who own at least 25 percent of the property in the area. The group has six months from the planned start of the petition drive in January to accomplish this.
Chandler said they plan to argue that a town could fund a higher level of service with less cost to citizens by capturing property tax revenues that now go to the county, and with a 5.5 percent utility users tax that would cost most residents about $30 per month.
With those revenues, he said, a town could fund a police department of 15 uniformed officers and five dispatchers that would always have two officers on patrol. He says a local police force could dramatically improve response times over the County Sheriff, which can take as long as 43 minutes to respond to some low-priority calls.
He also argues that Rancho Santa Fe experiences a very high level of burglaries compared to other towns of it size and demographics — something he says a local police force could change.
“The best service we could have would be a local police department that would have a five or six minute response time,” proponent Marion Dodson said.
The CPR group also says that local government would do a better job of limiting development in the area, helping to preserve local property values.
“Counties have a pro-development bias,” he said. “Counties are for increasing development, increasing their tax base … towns guard their open space zealously and are sort of anti-development.”
Though many are happy with the level of services Rancho Santa Fe currently receives from the county, Chandler and the CPR group argue that the interests of the two bodies are inherently in conflict, and that incorporation would strengthen the Ranch position in the future.
He worries that the county will eventually push for the widening of the county through-fares that traverse the community, and that open spaces now taken for granted will disappear as high land prices drive more development.
“You go fast forward 25 or 50 years and now Chino’s is gone and the Sahm property’s been sold off, the reservoir has got homes on it. One by one, the open spaces will disappear,” Chandler said.
In documentation on its Web site, CPR says that though voters would have to approve a utility user’s tax, their ultimate financial burden would decrease because of services now performed (for Covenant residents) by the Association that would become redundant under incorporation. They predict possibly 40 to 60 percent reductions in Association dues.
Chandler said CPR will begins its petition drive likely in January, and that it will be handled through home meetings and volunteers — not paid signature gatherers.The RSF Association is not currently taking a position on the proposal, according to Manager Pete Smith. The RSF Association paid for several incorporation studies in the 1990s but abandoned the effort when it became clear that the boundaries of an incorporated Rancho Santa Fe would include other neighborhoods and homeowners associations.
The incorporation effort — which has simmered since a vote for it failed in 1987 — is likely to generate a hefty amount of controversy, especially among residents who are satisfied with the area’s current relationship with the county.
“I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the members of the Covenant,” said resident — and a former Association board president — Bill Hinchy, a strong critic of past incorporation efforts. “If you want to talk about land use control, can you think of any place in California or anywhere that has more control than the Art Jury and the Covenant over how land is used? I can’t. I can’t think of any benefits.”
Proponents of incorporation admit they will see hardened opposition to the idea, but they say they’re ready with good arguments.
“If they had visited even one or two of the towns I’ve visited [in researching incorporation], they would have a completely different opinion,” Chandler said of incorporation critics. “If we don’t do this now, 25 or 50 years from now it will happen. It’s going to happen.